The festival is the unofficial launch of the biggest season in movies as well as the race toward the Oscars.

Every fall, right after Labor Day, one of the biggest events in the movie calendar gets underway: the Toronto International Film Festival, which most people call by its acronym, TIFF. Since it launched in 1976, the 10-day festival has become one of the largest and most prestigious in the world, propelling emerging filmmakers onto the international scene and awards hopefuls toward the big fall movie season.

The 10-day festival is the unofficial kick-off to the “prestige movie season” — which means keeping an eye on what’s buzzy at TIFF may tell you a lot about what performances and movies will be part of awards chatter later in the year. And the festival’s timing positions it as the de factoopening of awards season, a marathon of mostly serious dramas that lasts about six months, until the Oscars finally wrap it all up in late February.